Breaking Sounds

On the Cusp of Plastic Crimewave Sound

For the past few years, the hypnotic strains of what's still known as krautrock has been slowly edging it's way into other wayward genres, and with incredibly great results. In the case of Chicago's premier heads, Plastic Crimewave Sound, they stand peerless in their own hometown's dronescape of pill-addled, glassy-eyed adventurists looking to kill more than just a few brain cells. After a few recent lineup changes and a luxuriously packaged double LP 'No Wonder Land,' released earlier this year on Eclipse Records, it seems as if the quartet is on track straight to your pleasure receptors. Most notably different in the band recently is the addition of Nick D'Vyne (also of Chicago's Vee Dee) to the core crew of Skog Device and Lux, and his snarling guitar tone has added yet another dimension to the arleady dynamic sonance they're creating. A whirlwind of oscillating noise from three over-amplified instruments creates such an effect live that it's sensory deprivative. Combining filthy late 60s biker fuzz grooves with long forgotten monotonous prog-garage Hawkwind rhythms of anguish, it's got an immediately alluring or repelling effect, and that strangulated lead guitar squelching even drives the point home further. The lead guitarist and singer of this bizarre cadre of hallucinating minstrels is Plastic Crimewave himself (also the creator of the mindblowingly hand-drawn Galactic Zoo Dossier art/music magazine), an underground luminary and scholar of the forgotten musical history that has continued to evade the mainstream for the past several decades. He also has a radio programme on the air at 11pm Sundays on WGN 720AM that coincides with his regularly appearing installment in the Chicago Reader, "Secret History of Chicago Music." PCW's unquenchable desire to turn on more folks to his music of choice also continues this November with the resurgence of his Galactic Zoo Mix Tape Club, which includes 6 tapes a year of hand-picked rare psych, glam, punk, prog, and noise on real cassette tapes for the truly analog psychedelic music experience (subscriptions $35 US, $50 overseas, -get in touch at plasticcw@hotmail.com for more details). This year's annual Three Million Tongues Festival is also curated by the energetic Plastic Crimewave as well, and features appearances by Bert Jansch, Michael Yonkers, Charalambides, and Stooges' 'Funhouse" sax player Steve Mckay with the Radon Ensemble. The festival runs from November 17-19th at the Empty Bottle in Chicago and tickets are available on their site now. Check out the next issue of Galactic Zoo Dossier this coming Spring on Drag City, and check out Plastic Crimewave Sound live Tuesday November 7th at the Note in Chicago.

Here's a video shot at 2am live in Toronto- a frayed version of "Shockwave Rider" from their forthcoming album next spring. (video by infinitesoundvlog)